He ducked away from the Welcome Committee, and he and Mitch started walking down Camden Road, alternating duets of music and talk. When they arrived at the small Winrow homestead, Miss Dora was sitting on the porch with her cousin, the funeral director. Lizzie’s mother walked straight toward him and slapped him hard in the mouth. Roswell Diggs ran after her and pulled her away. Born and raised in New York, Mitch was not sure what to make of these Geechees. The last and only other time he had been south was for army camp, and he was there only long enough to get roughed up, jailed, then shipped off to war. He relieved Osceola of the dress box and stepped back to roll a cigarette.
Lizzie emerged from the cabin, her body swollen, her face a pushed-in pregnant pug. She stopped on the middle stair, her expression changing from anxiety to shame to anguish to joy that Osceola was alive in one piece and looking so fine! His face matched hers in metamorphosis—shock to betrayal to dismissal to realizing that this was his Lizzie May still. He ran off, leaving Mitch standing there with the box. Lizzie came quickly down the path and started after Osceola. Mitch grabbed her arm, his cigarette still lit. She jerked away. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand, sistuh. I understand everything.”
Bette saved the day. She caught Osceola in the roadway with her hand full of sage. “Oseola Turner, zat you? Cain’t b’lieve’t.”
“E’en, Mah Bette.”
“Juss look at em! All full-out handsome. Got colors on he chess and stripe on he arm. Dog bite it, ain’t dot sump!” Bette linked her arm into Osceola’s and leaned on him a bit to slow his pace and heart. “An’m who em dis brought wid em, so good-lookin’ n standin’ tall?”
“Mitchell Jackson, m’am.”
“Call me Mah Bette. Eb’body do.”
“He one of the original Hellfighters, Mah Bette!” Osceola announced proudly.
“I could see dot.”
“Now, I got to tell you, Osceola did his share of hell-raisin’ on his own,” Mitch added hastily.
“Well, we got hyeah ’bout it, got hyeah ’bout it all! Em stayin’ fuh sup, of cose.”
“We don’t want to put you to no trouble,” Mitch said.
“What kinda hell-raisuh don’t wanna raise no trouble? Come, come.” Mah Bette’s broad arms ushered them in. They walked past Lizzie, who took on a slow stride behind them. Lizzie and Ossie found themselves on the top porch step, standing at arm’s length, side by side.
Lizzie and Ossie. Lizzie stretched out her legs and curled her arches, straightened her back and sighed. Osceola leaned by the post, his hand in his pocket, one leg bent. Both wondering what to say, how to start. She sat down on the top step. He wandered over and sat beside her. Both looked straight ahead. Her hands resting on her knees, she turned to look at him. He lowered his head, then turned his eyes to meet hers. They stared at each other a long time, the wind dancing between them, quiet, unrevealing of the depth of their wounds.
Boston’s Mechanics Hall was packed. Detective Delaney sat uncomfortably in the double-letter section of the drafty old concert hall. He didn’t like this jazz band stuff, white and colored sitting together! But what could you say, they were war heroes. He had to admit, he had never seen anything like it.
After the Brazilian number by Gomez, Europe left the bandstand. His eyes were smarting again, so he motioned to Sissle to stand in while he took a quick break. Herbie slapped his drumstick on the rim, got up from his seat, and followed the band leader off stage. He caught Europe just beyond the wings.
“Go back on stage, Herbie. What did I tell you about doing that?”
“What did you say to me back there?”
“I told you put more pep in your sticks. You’re off tempo.”
“Quit ridin’ me, Europe. You tryin’ to show me up.”
Jim rubbed his eyes with impatience. “Listen, son, I told you, go away from me. I’m a sick man. I don’t want to argue with you. Go on back on stage. And when we get to New York, you’re fired. I’ll get that other kid from Charleston,” he said, walking off.
Herbie Wright followed Jim Europe into his dressing room, grabbed him from behind, and swiped a penknife across his jugular. Clutching his neck, Europe sank to the ground in amazement. Walking backstage for a quick bathroom break, Sissle saw the assault. He hollered out and charged at the crazed drummer, crouched with his shoulders hunched forward, his arm slashing wildly, the knife bloody up to the hilt. In a panic, the stage manager ran to the wings and motioned to the detective stationed in the audience.
“And for our next number, ladies and gentlemen, Al Johns will present a pianologue of song and stories . . .”
“Where’s Europe? Where’s Lieutenant Europe! We want Jim! We want Jim! WE WANT JIM!” the audience clamored, stomping and clapping.
“Lieutenant Europe is indisposed and will not be able to conduct the rest of the program.”
Ossie had invited Mitch to Charleston to see the other South, the South he loved, the place the music came from, to meet his girl. Now he was shamed into silence on their walk back. The older man considered how to offer solace. Their pace was slow, Ossie, for the first time, favoring the cane he was issued by the medics. The May air was hot and weighted, a hundred percent humidity, no breeze. Arriving in town, the two buddies ambled over to Hiram’s Barbershop. Mitch peered in the galley storefront window, his face partially masked behind the painted letters. As usual every seat was taken. The shop was alive with customers, awaiting their turn for a haircut.
Mr. Sullivan, his weathered hand dipped in manicure suds, recognized Osceola immediately and drew attention to the young man standing by the door with his corporal’s uniform and a couple of medals on his chest. The returning soldiers were greeted with a joyous hail of shouts and laughter. No one mentioned the cane, the stiffness of his knee. Osceola was still brooding over Lizzie, but his mood shifted as he introduced Mitch and the two began to regale the elders and small boys with tales of war and the new sense of freedom it had brought.
“They eat the egg of the fish? I thought only Negroes be eatin’ everythin’! They eat the egg of the fish?”
“Caviar, my friend, caviar. Nothin’ like it. French women and caviar. It’s an aphrodisiac.”
Conversation percolated about the room. “So we’re assigned to the French. Overnight, the 15th Regiment of the United States Army becomes the 369th Regiment of the French 16th Division! Trained for ten weeks on French equipment and—boom! Sent to the front. Ninety-one days. Longer than any American unit, colored or white. Ain’t like here. There’s places in the world the black man’s got respect.”
Sullivan prodded them. “I heard 372nd Illinois, the Pioneers, gave your band a run fuh the money.”
“They was National Guard,” Ossie retorted. “We was Army! We was stacked! James Europe’s band was all super selective, band members even from Puerto Rico. Illinois’s shit was raw. Right from the source, come up from the Mississippi. But the Hellfightuhs had the brassiest brass and the sassiest rag, original jazz, man. Our music was the real thing! I watched it hypnotize a whole village!”
Mitch jumped in, “Language says it all. Sure they was the Pioneers, but we was the Hellfighters. They were first, but we were the finest, the finish. General Fouco comes up to the lieutenant and says, ‘It’s Hell, monsieur,’ just like that, ‘It is like fighting Hell.’ Jimmy looks straight at the cat with these big, looming eyes, and says, ‘Then we should do all right,’ just like that. Shit, we from Harlem! ‘The War is Hell out there,’ the Frenchman say, but Big Jim, he say, ‘Well shit, that ain’t nothin’. We fight Hell every day!’ ”
“James Reese Europe, I didn’t get to fight with em, but played some,” Ossie continued. “He even helped me chart out one of my songs. You shoulda seen it, Sully. No more carryin’ Jocelyn’s hat, wrote out some charts. Been learnin’ orch-es-tra-tion. The music! People just streamin’ out, screamin’ for it. It’s a new world out there.” Ossie looked down at his shoes, trying hard to stave off his lingering f
ury, the picture of Lizzie still burning through his brain. “New world here, too, it look like. . . . Say, Sullivan, seen Deke?” he asked as the banter lulled. “Satdie night, thought sure to see him at Hiram’s.”
“We under new management, kid. I mean, sir,” Hiram chuckled.
“Ain’t we all, ain’t we all?”
Shifting a hot steamed towel from his face, Sullivan spoke cautiously as he examined the newly glossed neat nails of his dealin’ hand. “Deke ain’t been round since you left, son. Had some trouble. The law and what not. Couple of folks say they seen him, but he ain’t been round, elst I’d know. Layin’ low still, I suppose.”
“I’m in no hurry to find him,” Ossie spoke casually and looked up. “He’ll find me direct . . .”
Lizzie came through the door, her stomach about to burst. The room quieted. Everyone thinking, Bold little hussy.
She looked straight at Osceola. “May I speak with you, please?”
He grabbed her upper arm and brusquely escorted her out of the shop and out of earshot. “What are yuh thinkin’, comin’ down here like that! I’ll talk wid you later.” But he didn’t know what to say to her. He knew all the things he felt and mourned. He longed to hear her voice, but nothing she could say. “Get on the trolley and go home.”
“I don’t need no trolley. I got Mr. Lee.”
“Get on the trolley, I said. It’s dangerous tonight. I’ll bring Mr. Lee to you tomorrow. Go home to your ma’s.” He grabbed her wrist and slapped a quarter in her palm, then walked back to the shop.
Charleston was once again bustling with commerce. The sailors and soldiers returning on the SS Wichita were not the illustrious bourbon kings, but farm hicks and college boys, puffed up with victory. “We come early and we stay late!” hollered Coleridge McKinley IV after treating everyone to a discount at the movie house. Standing atop a table, Flip now had a crooked crap game going. Roswell’s relatives still ran the billiard tables at the white tavern downtown, but the crowd from 1919 was not like the crowd from 1890. Just as Flip went to announce the participants in the next round, a billiard cue broke over someone’s head, then a chair went flying. A bottle cracked a skull right next to him, then he got stabbed in the gut. Tables overturned. Pumped-up sailors were comin’ home wantin’, sensing it, feelin’ it—something changed. Colored weren’t colored. They were “Negroes.” On the street, they looked new, acted new, proud and entitled. Expecting the war over there would change something over here, they had a new way of walking in the world, and these Southern soldier-boy soldiers weren’t havin’ it. They trashed the billiard hall, then like bees, a swarm of blue jackets came flying down the boulevard. They stormed out the tavern, knocking black fellahs in the head, throwin’ them to the ground. They then spilled into the side streets and alleys, looking for anybody black. Their numbers grew to a thousand. The swarm blew over the city and formed a swath of rage and lust and fun. A phalanx of bobbing torches appeared outside the barbershop window.
The first thing Ossie thought about was Lizzie! Despite the stents in his leg, he ran out of the shop and made a dash in the direction he had last seen her walking. Mitch and Sully followed him into the street. The rest of the customers retreated to the back. The owners snuffed the lights.
By the time the trio got to the trolley, a pack of hooligans had surrounded it, rocking the carriage, pushing it on its side, lifting the wheels from the tracks. The driver was screaming for the colored to “Get off, get out and run!” Sparks and screeches flew from the wires above, the passengers thrown about the cabin. A few managed to get to the door. Others were pulled from the windows, and beaten with rocks and clubs and fists. Using the patrol technique they had learned at the front, Ossie and Mitch, joined by old Sullivan, fought their way to the car. Mitch’s feint, thrust, and parry matched Sully’s agile prizefighting moves. They shielded Osceola as he found Lizzie, crouched beneath a seat. Osceola carried her, flew with her, to a hiding place. Under the wharf. “Go, go in. You’ll be safe.”
“Osceola, don’t leave me.”
“Gotta help Mitch and Sully. Don’t come out till I say . . . Bought you something. From Paris.” He smiled and let go her hand.
When Osceola turned the corner to rejoin his friends, he found Deke standing in his path. They had traveled the same alleys, the same escape routes as boys—stealing, hiding out from the asylum warden. Of course, Deke was headed for the hideout under the planks, but why had Sullivan lied? Osceola looked into his brother’s eyes and knew. Lizzie. It was you. Deke also understood this. This boy he had birthed with his own hands, whom he had sworn to protect, meant to kill him. How would he defend himself? How survive? How? Survive.
Ossie’s lust for blood was overpowered by his need to protect. He steered Deke away from where Lizzie was hiding. “I got guys need help out there.”
“Fuck you,” Deke scoffed, attempting to push the youth aside. Osceola held fast to his arm. This boy he had birthed with his own hands was ordering him. Before Deke could react, the mob was upon them. Like the old days, they were forced to defend themselves together. Trying to escape, they were nearly overrun, Osceola felled by a rock to his thigh. The injured leg buckled. The swarm encircled him, pounding, kicking, a dozen feet kicking, the blood in his mouth mixed with bile. Deke threw the assailant nearest him onto the gang attacking Ossie. Like John Henry, he lifted the man and tossed the body at a rush of them, then, stepping among the fallen and pummeling, twisting necks and arms, he broke the grasp of a youth with a lock around his neck like a noose. A limp sailor scampered, falling down as he fled in terror at the sight of a black man fighting back.
Deke pulled Ossie up and the two made their escape again, clutching each other in a three-legged race for their lives. Deke dragging him, his toes skimming the ground. The mob didn’t care which was which, who was who. “Kill the niggahs! Kill the goddamn sons of bitches!”
When they were in sight of the barbershop, Deke broke loose and charged his pursuers. He waved Osceola on, awaiting their attackers, but the mob veered to another street, another random sighting.
As Osceola and Deke stumbled in, Mitch finished blocking the windows with benches and drew his pistol. Deke squared off at another window, drawing his gun from an ankle holster. A shotgun by his side, Sully wrapped his knuckles in wet towels to get good traction. As fast as Hiram, the barber, could fill bottles with kerosene, his brother stuffed them with face towels. “I can lob one of these with the force of a mean right fielder.” An explosion of blue and white flames sent the rabblers yelpin’ for cover in all directions. “They ain’t takin’ my shop. Not no mo’. Not this time.”
When the mob retreated, the men sat quiet. Shit, I fight Hell every day, Osceola remembered as he sat quietly down in the barber’s chair. The pin in his leg had snapped again. His shinbone bent at an odd angle. His eyes were open, but his breathing was shallow. He couldn’t get his wind. The ribs had fractured and ruptured an artery. He was bleeding to death inside. He looked at each of them, these men crouched in the darkness, then closed his eyes. In the darkness, he heard music. In the darkness, he caught sight of the future he would never have and smiled, hearing the music. Nothing could match Lizzie’s dancin’, nothing could match the way she danced!
“He’s going into shock,” Mitch shouted, all too familiar with the symptoms.
“Stay wid me, Ossie. Stay wid me,” Deke screamed. “You cain’t leave!”
Nothin’ could match the way she, nothin’ could match, nothin’ could . . . way she danced . . . Oddly, he could hear Deke wailing and cursing in the background, he could feel Deke cradling him in his arms, cryin’, “Mama, no . . . No,” tears running down his face like the many veins of a river. One last look. Liz— And he was still.
Deke grabbed the amulet round Ossie’s neck and dashed it to the ground.
“What a strange way to die. Machine gun unit, bandstand leader, consummate diplomat. Broke it all open. The whole array of instruments can fit—violin, bass, sax, strings,
reed, brass, percussion, all in one glorious . . .” Europe’s voice drifted off.
“Jim. Jimmy. Stay with me,” Sissle insisted, talking his friend back from death.
Jim Europe watched his life force gush through his fingers in the dressing room mirror, and turned to Sissle. “Celebration of a new—Rhythms you cannot anticipate, but instantly . . . remember.” He drifted between lucidity and dream. “Don’t forget to have the band down to the statehouse at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be out in time to conduct. See that the rest of the program is gone through. Take away from a man—everything that he knows—his family, his name, his land, his language.” He drew up his arms as if shackled, his blood-washed hands closed into fists grabbing at Sissle’s jacket. “His . . . his freedom . . . what is he to do? — He sings, Noble, he sings . . . Two celli, four violins, four banjos, four bass, alto banjo, two sax, four clarinets, plus three, six, eight trumpets, four French horns, four English horns, two tuba, three trombones, and Castle is fined one case of champagne. Wearing brown shoes in the pit? You’re late! My, look at all those stars . . .”
A thousand hooves thundered above Lizzie, spewing dirt and grit in her face and eyes. A force in the dark grabbed her by the head and pushed her down. Her hair, her dress stick to the floor. He pounds her jaw, chin, and eye. Deacon, his face a black mask of rage, tears her open—
Lizzie jumped awake with a start. At first she thought herself entombed, but the muffled voices reassured her. They were quiet and calm. “It’s a wonder she alive.”